Finally figured it out:
when creating the graph I pass variables to most of the options
and the variable passed to the labelText: and label: options were not strings
it always worked before so I am at a loss as to why it stopped working.
anyway I toString() ‘d the variable and now it all works again.
I use an ajax call to get the data for the graph
I use mysql to provide the data to the ajax call
The only thing that I had changed was that I did move my server to a VPS server (from a shared hosting account)

the TypeError: a.replace is not a function spoofed me – the processes just didn’t get passed a complete/correct set of data and that triggered that particular error